And suddenly there it is, hiding in plain sightB-flat 9, right there on page 89 of Hal Leonard’sGuitar Method: Incredible Chord Finder, a realtwo-fingered wrist-wrencher for a simple fellawhose fat little fingers after forty years are stillfretting out ‘House of the Rising Sun’ andall those other same ol’ same ol’ C, G,A-minor and F-chord songsof the sixties.

But when my little flat-top’s stringsfloat this one back up to me all smokyand dark and minor... I mean, man, it’s likesome hip fairy godmother just waved her wandto the light switch, waxed my kitchen allneon café-blue, shape-shifted my side chairinto the center-stage barstool...and out comes